Adapt picks up where Drill left off. The subjects of the Sitri Center are asked to bend, to change, to let themselves be reshaped. What begins as a calm suggestion becomes a pattern they cannot refuse — each dream folding into the next, each voice reinforcing the same instruction. Adaptation is survival, but it also becomes surrender.

Series artwork for this arc is from Vika Glitter, under the Pixabay license.

The Deep Dream State aims to use human art at every stage of the creative supply chain.

Dream manipulation, enforced conformity, group hypnosis dynamics, submissive themes

The story opens with Phoebe in a session with Dr. Meg Aerin at the Deep Dream State Sitri Institute, where she reports that her dreams are becoming increasingly vivid and overwhelming. Dr. Aerin explains that this intensity is expected when subjects follow strict sleep hygiene protocols that deny them physical release, causing the subconscious to seek alternative outlets. The conversation is interrupted when Dr. Zev Talcott summons Meg to the corridor, where their professional relationship quickly dissolves into a sexual encounter. Meg, competing with another researcher named Tessa for Zev’s attention, eagerly proves her superiority while warning that their affair must remain hidden from Dr. June Lowell.

Meanwhile, Phoebe’s dreams take her to a pornography store where she and a companion named Hespa contemplate stealing a double-headed dildo. They are caught by security officers Cael and Nyra, who take them to a backroom and demand a demonstration as punishment. What begins as humiliation transforms into compulsion as Phoebe finds herself unable to resist the physical sensations and the rhythmic commands from her captors. The dream blurs the line between punishment and pleasure, with Nyra declaring that Phoebe’s body will make the decisions her broken brain cannot.

In the observation chamber, the research team watches Phoebe’s responses with growing concern and conflict. Dr. Tessa Finn defends her experimental construct as needing more time to achieve breakthrough results, but colleagues Dr. June Lowell and Dr. Meg Aerin argue that the approach is degenerating rather than healing. Zev initially supports Tessa’s innovative methods, but June accuses him of bias due to his personal involvement with her. The team debates whether Phoebe’s increasingly explicit dreams represent therapeutic progress or dangerous reinforcement of harmful patterns.

Phoebe’s dream intensifies as Nyra, Cael, and Hespa inform her that she has passed a threshold and will now perform publicly in the dream room. They guide her hand to touch herself while repeating degrading phrases about becoming a puppet whose strings will be pulled by observers. The dream figures promise that she will be stripped of clothing and dignity, left wearing only sensors and restraints while researchers watch and record her responses. Phoebe repeats their words in fragmented speech, her resistance collapsing into desperate need.

Back in the observation chamber, the team listens to Phoebe’s vocalizations over the intercom as she begs to be used and displayed. June coldly declares that Tessa’s experiment has failed catastrophically. Rather than teaching Phoebe to escape her fears, the construct has taught her to eroticize her own humiliation, with each orgasm reinforcing the compulsive loop. Meg savors Tessa’s defeat while Zev turns cruel, mocking Tessa for not understanding that she was training Phoebe rather than saving her. June clinically notes that the subject is now fully compliant, admitting the approach is effective even if it represents complete ethical failure.

The story concludes with Dr. Tessa Finn’s written confession to the Sitri Institute’s adjudicating committee. She accepts full responsibility for her failure, acknowledging that she created a spiral rather than a ladder and that her own boundaries dissolved as she became a voyeur to Phoebe’s dreams. Tessa admits that she began using institute equipment to simulate the same response loops on herself, touching herself while watching the feeds and eventually camming at night. She confesses that she stopped wanting to lead the project and simply wanted to experience what Phoebe felt. Despite accepting that she deserves removal from any leadership position, Tessa begs to remain at the institute in any capacity, even as a junior assistant, because the center represents her dream.

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